The Matrix of Khouzouhept
by Benestro
Summary: The Wildman threw back his shaggy head and guffawed. "Now this is refreshing! I thought men of your fibre had long been swept from this sphere! It pains me to have to slay you! Come now! Let the contest begin!"


I

Kaa-Vulth, deposed Emperor of Tazzozz, grinned as he surveyed the surreal vista laid out in the bowl-shaped valley beneath him. He stood at the edge of the "bowl", alongside the River Mray that plunged over the bowls edge in a raging torrent. At the bottom, and perhaps two or three miles away, there was a large silvery structure bulging up from the lush greenery, lodged in the jungle like a pearl in an oyster. It was circular, at least a mile in diameter, like a wagon wheel with inner and outer circles connected by twelve spokes. Kaa-Vulth reckoned it thrust above the treetops some thirty feet. It had the heavy, menacing look of a fortress or keep. He tossed back his silvery mane and allowed himself a short bark of a laugh. The old woodcutter had not lied, at least not about the "magic fortress" in the Bowl of Mray. Whether it had actually appeared overnight as he claimed, or held any great wonders, was another matter.

Kaa-Vulth discarded his voluminous, emerald cloak, leaving his wolfishly lean frame clad only in a loincloth of purple silk and leathern sandals. He then removed the heavy, wickedly recurved saber from his waist and slung it over his sun-bronzed shoulders. Without further preamble, he began the long descent to the valley floor. For all his lofty title (or former title), this man was no degenerate, mincing product of the courts of Tazzozz, but one of the primitive, iron-thewed savages that dwell in the deadly inhospitable wilds of Y'kon, a region that lay upon the opposite side of the globe from his current environs.

Half a lifetime ago, Kaa-Vulth had fled his savage homeland and began a red-handed path of adventure around the world. From the hellish fire-pits of Ohk'rjj to the demon haunted jungles of Pun-Tai, he fought, bled, and loved. One day his path led him to the ancient island empire of Tazzozz. There, Kaa-Vulth broke the neck of Emperor Sullvan XVII at the foot of the Opal Throne and seized said throne by right of combat. Much to the chagrin of the scheming courtiers who orchestrated his ascent, Kaa-Vulth proved to be far less pliable than they'd hoped. Gaining the trust and love of the people, Kaa-Vulth ruled as a strong and fair monarch for a decade, ushering in a golden age of prosperity for Tazzozz. All this came crashing down when, a mere fortnight agone, a cabal of disgruntled noblemen enlisted the aid of the sorcerers of Pun-Tai, traditional enemies of Tazzozz, and struck down the emperor by foul necromancy. Kaa-Vulth was cast naked into a dungeon to await execution. Again, the debauched nobility of Tazzozz underestimated the savage from Y'kon, for he escaped the dungeon and slipped away into the night, vowing to return and regain his empire, and wreak bloody vengeance on his betrayers.

These reflections brought to Kaa-Vulth's steely gray eyes a blaze of hatred and rage. He forced these emotions aside, he would need all his wits about him to complete the descent, then there would be the trek through the jungle to the eldritch fortress beyond, If the woodcutter was to be believed, it was possible the mysterious edifice held the key to the barbarian's return to the Opal Throne.

Kaa-Vulth had encountered the sinewy, nut-brown man in a run down tavern in one of the rag tag collections of shacks that pass for villages in the wilder regions of Tazzozz. The deposed emperor had found it prudent to steer clear of the major cities, where he would be more likely to be recognized and cornered by those who pursued him. The woodcutter had stumbled into the tavern exhausted and wild eyed, his shock of white hair tangled with leaves and twigs, babbling about a "magic fortress". Most dismissed him as a drunk or madman, but Kaa-Vulth, perhaps intrigued, or perhaps wishing distraction from his own troubles, bought the man ale and heard his tale.

Scouting for new sources of lumber, the woodcutter, Rastblat by name, had climbed into the Bowl of Mray. Finding an abundance of fine trees, he lost track of time and found night fast approaching. He decided to camp in the bowl for the night. He made a rude shelter and a small fire, and after a simple meal of dried fruits and nuts, sleep overcame him. At some point later in the night, Rastblat was roused by a low hum that permeated his being, rumbling his bones and organs. He rose and looked about him. He saw, not a spearcast away, an enormous metallic wall, part of a fortress that had not been present when the woodcutter fell asleep. Rastblat was not a bold man, and turned to flee, but he found his retreat blocked by a towering, orange-furred figure. When Rastblat raised his axe to defend himself, the hairy giant produced some sort of metallic contrivance and held it before the terrified woodcutter. There was a flash of light. The next thing Rastblat could recall, it was broad daylight, and he was out of The Bowl and on the road that led to the village.

Kaa-Vulth dropped the last few feet to the ground, landing in a pantherish crouch, after pausing for a few heartbeats to return his saber to its place on his left hip and get his bearings; he loped off into the jungle. The woodcutter's tale had been outrageous, but Kaa-Vulth had beheld many outrageous things in his life. It was the idea of the flashing instrument that had either blasted Rastblat insensible, or perhaps transported him out of the Bowl, that intrigued the barbarian. Such a device would be a powerful tool to aid in his recovering the Opal Throne. He took some satisfaction in the speed and silence with which he moved through the undergrowth, the years of city life had not dulled the keen edge of his woodcraft. It was as if no time had passed since he crept like a phantom through the moonless jungles of Saargullath and cut the throats of slumbering Witch-Bats. In no time he found himself standing before the outer wall of the fortress. It was preternaturally smooth, with the sheen and colour of nickel. There was no decoration, nor could Kaa-Vulth perceive any seams or joints in the surface. He began to circumnavigate the structure and found no deviation in the material. A noise ahead arrested his reconnaissance. He leapt catlike away from the wall and back into the trees, from there he observed a peculiar display.

A group of what he deemed men soon came into view, they were squat, stocky dwarves clad in tight fitting dark shirts and trousers, and hoods that covered all but their wide, flat, purple hued faces. They muttered to each other in deep voices using some monotonous, syllabic tongue. About their waists and strapped across their chests were belts carrying a variety of unfathomable implements. The strange group stopped not far from Kaa-Vulth's hiding spot. One of their number performed a series of esoteric gesticulations while facing a portion of the fortress wall. Kaa-Vulth's eyes widened as a portion of the wall extruded a mushroom-like shape the "cap" of which was crowned with three further knobbish projections. These the dwarf manipulated. With a quiet hiss, a vertical slit appeared in the leaden wall and widened into a roughly man sized portal. The dwarves quickly formed a line and filed into the fortress.

"Visking!" swore Kaa-Vulth under his breath.

Many would have been paralyzed and dumbfounded by such events, not so Kaa-Vulth! Bold action was ever his dogma. Like unto a striking viper he leapt from the jungle, crossed the space to the wall and slipped into the portal before it sealed shut.

II

Kaa-Vulth paused as the strange portal hissed closed behind him, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dim interior and the dwarves to push ahead of him. He was in a broad high ceilinged corridor. At regular intervals, peculiar stacks of glowing, multicolored globes thrust out from the corners of the hall at floor and ceiling, and by each of these projections would be an extrusion similar to the mushroom-like thing that the dwarf had manipulated to enter. Kaa-Vulth surmised these must mark the entrances to chambers within the fortress. Ahead he could still make out the dim shapes of the dwarves. Lacking a better plan he decided to dog their heels in hopes observing them might make more of the fortresses secrets known to him. He followed the dwarves for some time, watching as they went about various tasks that Kaa-Vulth could not fathom. Now and then one or two would leave the group to be replaced by different, but identical, dwarves. Often they would manipulate the wall mushrooms and open a door. They pressed the nodes on the extrusion in only a few different combinations. These Kaa-Vulth observed closely with his keen eyesight, and commit the pattern to memory.

He had cause to test this knowledge soon, for he heard the hiss of a portal opening not far behind him, followed by heavy footsteps. Racing to the nearest extrusion, he pressed the nodes in the manner of the dwarves. To his relieved surprise a portal appeared and he slipped inside. The portal hissed closed behind his back, and he faced another long corridor that was a near duplicate of the one he's just quit, save that it showed a gentle curve to the left. He proceeded swiftly down this hall for some yards, before nearly colliding with a dwarf who appeared in his path trundling in the opposite direction. Kaa-Vulth ripped his saber from its scabbard and made to split the creature's skull, but paused when he saw that it made no outcry or movement. Its broad, flat face was impassive. It showed no fear, anger nor even surprise. Kaa-Vulth brandished his weapon and addressed the dwarf.

"See here, dwarf! No harm will befall you if you make no outcry, and point me to where lay the talisman that befuddles men with flashing light! Speak!"

The dwarf made no utterance, nor did his demeanor change in the slightest. He merely stared back at Kaa-Vulth unperturbed. This baffled Kaa-Vulth, he had seen men threatened in this manner, aye, and he had been threatened thus himself. Normal men would shrink in fear, cooperate, sneer in bold arrogance, snarl in angry defiance, or any number of reactions. But this dwarf's indifference was odd and mysterious. Exasperated, Kaa-Vulth made one last query.

"Very well, fellow, keep your piece. Will you at least point me toward he who is master of this keep?"

The dwarf continued to stare blankly at the barbarian for a few heartbeats, and then abruptly thrust out his arm, gesturing toward a portion of the wall. As Kaa-Vulth's eyes fell upon it another portal hissed into existence. The Y'konian bristled; this had all the earmarks of a trap. But what other course was open to him? If he was to be trapped, his captors would soon learn they had trapped a lion. Sneering at the silent dwarf, Kaa-Vulth turned and proceeded down the newly opened corridor. It was again a near duplicate of the others, but this time the orbs glowed less brightly and there was a mist haze blanketing all.

The hairs at the base of Kaa-Vulth's neck bristled as he perceived the indistinct shape at the far end of the dim corridor. A hulking anthropomorphic figure approached out of the mist. As it drew closer, the details of its appearance were revealed. It combined aspects of beast and man, it as covered in red-orange fur, ape-like with long massive limbs and a muzzle full of sharp fang. It did not lope along ape-fashion, but strode upright with great purpose. This along with the steady, probing gaze of its dark eyes spoke of an intellect beyond the animalistic. All doubt of the creature's intelligence was blasted from the barbarian's mind when the beast spoke in a deep, well modulated baritone.

"Welcome, Son of Adam. You are a most impressive specimen to have made it this far into the voidship of Tekk'ssuruzz, but now you have reached the end of your journey."

The barbarian king of purple-spired Tazzozz threw back his silvery mane and brandished his sabre at the furry giant. In truth, he was amazed by the creature, but it would not serve him to reveal his amazement.

"I am Kaa-Vulth, son of Ollam-Kaa, son of Vulth-Sagon! I know naught of this Adam you speak of! Would you bar my path, Wildman? It would serve you ill! I have bested monsters greater than you in my day, by Visking!"

"I have no recourse, manling! I am ensorcelled by powerful magics to dwell here and challenge all who would enter, and grant a three-fold boon to any who can best me."

Kaa-Vulth snorted derisively.

"Three wishes, eh? How will you grant boons with my blade twisted in your guts? "

The Wildman threw back his shaggy head and guffawed.

"Now this is refreshing! I thought men of your fibre had long been swept from this sphere! It pains me to have to slay you! Come now! Let the contest begin!"

The Wildman crept forward, his mighty hands reaching out to grasp Kaa-Vulth. For all his savage bravado, Kaa-Vulth was no berserker. His opponent was twice his size and no doubt possessed of great strength. But Kaa-Vulth had not gotten this far on strength alone. He feinted as if to charge the wildman, then at the last instant stopped and hurled his saber end over end toward the hairy beast's face. The wildman threw up his hands and brushed aside the saber, howling in pain and rage as the spinning blade sliced into his hands and forearms. While the wildman was thus distracted, Kaa-Vulth sprung monkey-like into the air, lighting briefly on one of the globe like projections, and leapt from there on the Wildman's back.

The hairy beast realized what the barbarian had done, and reached back to seize and throttle Kaa-Vulth, but the Y'konian had already encircled his neck with his iron-thewed arms. Though the Wildman's neck was thick as a tree trunk, Kaa-Vulth managed to lock his hands together and squeeze. The wildman strove mightily to dislodge the barbarian, smashing him into the corridor walls, and buffeting him as best he could with mallet-like fists and forearms. Kaa-Vulth absorbed punishment that would have crippled or killed most men. He tightened his grip inexorably, cutting off the flow of air to the wildman's lungs and of blood to his brain. The hairy monsters struggles weakened, and at last, he slumped to his knees.

With great force of will, Kaa-Vulth curbed his barbaric instinct to slay his foe; instead he slightly loosened his grip, and muttered in the man-beast's ear.

"Yield, hairy one! Yield and live! I would not slay thee!"

A great shudder ran through the wildman's frame and he replied weakly, almost it seemed with a hint of relief.

"I yield."

Kaa-Vulth released his grip and crept back cautiously, retrieving his saber. The wildman dragged himself to opposite wall and leaned upon it recovering his breath.

"You are indeed mighty, Kaa-Vulth, son of Ollam-Kaa, son of Vulth-Sagon." he croaked. "Mighty and clever. Many were the beings that have contended with me to traverse this hall, but only you have bested me! Now, name the three boons you would have me bestow on you!"

Kaa-Vulth sneered.

"You still hold to this three wishes nonsense? Do you think me simple, that I would embrace this child's fable? "

"It is no fable, barbarian! The science of the stars is beyond your ability to comprehend, better to explain it to you as magic. I am bound by powerful and esoteric workings! Now, name your boons."

"Bah! Even if you have this power, how do I know you will not use it to betray me? It is often thus in legend!"

"I am no son of Adam, to insert falsehood and treachery into my dealings! Even so, such is my ensorcellment that I cannot dissemble or lie."

Kaa-Vulth rubbed his chin and considered for a few moments.

"Very well. I will take my boons in the form of answers to the questions I will put to you. You will speak the truth?"

"I will."

"First. The woodcutter who told me of this place spoke of a…. talisman that flashed brightly and rendered him senseless, sending him miles away. Does this thing exist?"

"It does," replied the wildman wearily. "It does stun and baffle the target, but it is not what transposed him far from here."

"Second. Where is this talisman?"

"Behind the door at the end of this corridor."

Kaa-Vulth looked to end of the corridor and beheld a featureless lead colored lens shape. It was highly polished yet gave back no reflection. It seemed to gaze at Kaa-Vulth like the soulless eye of some immortal leviathan. Jaw set, he gripped his blade firmly and strode purposefully toward the portal. Without turning he spoke once more to the wildman.

"Thirdly, I would have you released from whatever geas holds you here. Go and be free of this maddening place."

The wildman rose from the floor rubbing his neck. He stretched and laughed heartily.

"Compassionate as well as strong! The people of Tazzozz were well served by their barbaric usurper! It is my hope he is restored to them by and by!"

The wildman trotted down the corridor, in the direction Kaa-Vulth had come.

"You have earned my gratitude, son of Ollam-Kaa, and the gratitude of Dool-Lagari of the Ghooli-Ghaha is not a thing to be taken lightly! In gratitude I offer you another piece of truth; beyond that door lie two perils! Both dreadful beyond description! Best that you leave with me now, keeping your hide and sanity intact!"

Kaa-Vulth grinned and saluted the wildman with a flourish of his saber.

"Thank you Dool-Lagari of the Ghooli-Ghaha, but the die is cast! Whatever awaits me behind that door I have no choice but to face it."

"So you toil under a geas of your own making. So be it! If you will not heed, hearken and remember these words, for they may aid you; Ka nama kaa lajerama. Repeat them to me!"

The Y'konian repeated the words; though he had never heard them They felt familiar on his tongue, and a strange thrill passed through his body. When he had finished speaking the words, Dool-Lagari nodded in satisfaction.

"You will know when to speak the words again, manling. Good luck and farewell!"

Kaa-Vulth watched the wildman until he disappeared around a corner, then turned to the door. There were no extrusions or nodes to manipulate, but as he neared the door its surface rippled as a pond pierced by stone and dissipated, leaving only a yawning opening.

Kaa-Vulth snarled as he entered.

III

The chamber beyond the opening took the form of a dome. Kaa-Vulth found it difficult to judge its size for it seemed at once hauntingly vast and stiflingly cramped. Its illumination too, was contradictory, for a glare emanated from all parts of the dome, but revealed its contents only dimly. In the chambers center, there was a sort of pillar that seemed to grow organically from both floor and ceiling. There was movement there. Did the pillar itself move? Kaa-Vulth crept toward it, sabre at the ready.

Up close, he perceived the pillar was translucent, within there swarmed myriad orbs of varied size and color. Kaa-Vulth found their cavorting undulations intoxicating, and gazed upon them intently. As he watched the orbs their movements grew more fascinating, they writhed about and through one another with increasing complexity. He noticed there was a sound element associated with the orbs, at first a meaningless dull drone, but this soon developed into more complex sounds. Was it speech? Kaa-Vulth could not call it any speech that he knew, but the sound introduced concepts and thought-forms into his mind. A story was being told to him, a story with insistent intensity, as though something desperately wanted him to understand and know.

Kaa-Vulth could not know. Most of what extruded itself into his psyche was too alien, too unfathomable. Here and there were images and concepts he could understand; He knew eons of stygian blackness, the cold airless gulfs between stars. There was travel over profoundly vast distances, through the blazing furnaces of creation itself. Sallow-faced pygmies worshiped without understanding. The meat-things could not fathom Khouzouhept, only the vegetation was compatible in any way. More eons passed in green. The panoply that proceeded before Kaa-Vulth's consciousness became somewhat more understandable, though still outré'. Blazing, fiery jungles. Wild, flaxen haired warrior women. Countless wars fought over shifting sands, fought with spear, sword, then with instruments of death Kaa-Vulth only knew from legend. Metal, death dealing hulks crawled across the earth. The seas and skies became infested with steel monstrosities that rained death upon the heads of wailing victims. Over and over, Khouzouhept saw mankind drag themselves up from savagery to the cusp of apotheosis, only to hurl themselves once more into the cesspit of apedom. (In the thought-forms born of Khouzouhept, Kaa-Vulth beheld how the realms and empires of his own epoch were born from man's arrogant flaunting of sorcery and super-science.) Ever did Khouzouhept watch, moving from one form to another, striving to be understood.

At last, THEY came... out of the void from another sphere. THEY recognized Khouzouhept for what Khouzouhept was, but understanding no more than the meat things on the blue sphere. THEY sought to use Khouzouhept for their own ends.

Khouzouhept would be free.

Khouzouhept implored Kaa-Vulth to understand that which the barbarian was incapable of understanding.

Kaa-Vulth's was no mean intellect, but the immensity of that which Khouzouhept forced into his mind had nearly burst his sanity and rendered him a simpleton. The Y'konian stood dumbly before the column, slack jawed and drooling.

In this state, he was ignorant of the tall, robed figure that loomed up behind him.

IV

Kaa-Vulth's higher reasoning had been mazed and baffled by the revelations of Khouzouhept. But his primordial, savage instincts were able to take over where his more evolved mind had failed. It was on this primordial level that he became aware of the figure behind him; He spun about raising his sabre and snarling like a cornered jaguar. He beheld a towering figure as tall or more so than the wildman he'd encountered earlier. Its body was concealed by voluminous ebony robes but seemed slender and angular, a pale, bulbous globe of a head was perched upon the narrow shoulders, and It was near featureless save for a pair of enormous, pitch black almond-shaped eyes positioned over a thin slit of a mouth. The figure raised its long narrow hands before it, hands that held an intricate, silvery apparatusThough shocked by the thing's appearance; Kaa-Vulth was slowly regaining his wits. He recognized the instrument the figure held as the selfsame mechanism that had stunned the wood cutter. Should the bulb-headed creature activate it…

Still acting on an instinctive, bestial level, ancient words came unbidden to Kaa-Vulth's lips.

"Ka nama kaa lajerama!"

With the utterance of the words, there was a jarring shift in all that Kaa-Vulth perceived. Where before the chamber was vague an ill defined, it was now sharply delineated. Far smaller than it had first appeared, it was a ten foot diameter lead hued dome encircled by five arches centered about the central tower. The figure that menaced Kaa-Vulth had also changed; the towering bulb-headed being was replaced by a creature that if anything was more alarming. The hands that held the contraption where clawed and greenly scaled, and the wedge shaped head that jutted forth on a long sinuous neck was that of a fanged ophidian nightmare. Kaa-Vulth recoiled.

"By Visking! The—snake—that—speaks!"

Uncounted ages of legend entered Kaa-Vulth's awareness. Serpent men, spawn of repellent Yig, Father of Serpents. These were cold-blooded abominations that had plagued man before he climbed out of the trees. Kaa-Vulth had assumed them to exist only in the fevered imaginings of long dead seers. Now one stood before him in stark reality.

These recollections occupied but a fraction of a heartbeat. Kaa-Vulth knew should the scaly nightmare be allowed to operate the esoteric device in its talons he would be undone. He leapt into action with the pantherish agility that had brought him from the savage wilds of Y'kon to the Opal Throne of Tazzozz. He slashed upward with his saber, slashing the man-snake across the hands and severing a few fingers. The monstrous fiend hissed in pain and rage, dropping the silvery device. The serpent spread his arms wide, revealing wrists bearing metallic bracers that crackled with eldritch energy. Instinctively Kaa-Vulth knew this was another sorcerous attack. He dared not hesitate. He lunged, hewing at the serpent man's neck. The reptilian horror brought his arms up both to block his barbaric foe's blow and to bring the crackling bracers together. Kaa-Vulth knew not why the serpent man strove to connect these bracers, but he knew it could only bode ill. He shifted his sabre mid stroke so that the blade interposed between the bracers, so they connected with the steel of Tazzozz rather than each other. There was a blinding flash and Kaa-Vulth was forcibly hurled back into the central column.

He lay on the floor stunned for a few moments before rising unsteadily to his feet. He cursed the sluggishness of his own movements. Glancing at his sabre, he found the blade was destroyed, the few handbreadths of steel remaining melted and pitted. He groggily turned to once again face his opponent. The serpent man had fared far worse. He was hideously charred. His arms were reduced to smoldering bubbling stumps, his robe was burnt away, and the scaly flesh beneath was blistered and oozed The reptilian fiend hissed inhuman curses as he slowly dissolved into a noxious puddle of gelid flesh and bone before the horrified gaze of the barbarian.

Kaa-Vulth felt a wave of weakness and nausea wash over him and he stumbled, supporting himself with a hand on the swirling glasslike column. His skin burned where the blast had seared and blistered his flesh. The serpent man had been felled by his own sorcery, but Kaa-Vulth felt he had not escaped the scaly fiend's vengeance. He chuckled grimly, his end would be both strange and wondrous, too bad no sagas would be woven of the fate of Kaa-Vulth, unless perhaps the purple faced dwarves told such tales.

Beneath his fingers he felt the jagged edges where the blast had cracked the classy surface of the column. A strange whim came over the barbarian. Were his wits addled by the eldritch blast that felled him, or was it a suggestion placed in his mind by the entity contained within the column?

With the hilt of his ravaged sabre he pummeled the damaged portion of the column. Expending the last of his waning strength, he rained blow after blow on the glassy surface. Shards flew and an opening appeared, disgorging a translucent, viscous green fluid. As the weakness overcame him and his vision narrowed to a tunnel of blackness. Kaa-Vulth's mind was filled with one insistent mandate.

"Free Khouzouhept. Khouzouhept would be free."

V

Out of the black non-existence of oblivion, a grinning, bestial face congealed before the bleary, swollen eyes of Kaa-Vulth.

"Welcome back manling! I had feared too much time had passed and the healing machines would be ineffective."

Slowly Kaa-Vulth was able to focus on the toothy visage and recognize Dool-Lagari, the wildman with whom he had so recently grappled. With great effort he spoke, forcing the words to form upon his leaden tongue.

"Dool-Lagari?" he croaked. "What has happened?"

"You were all but slain manling! Even a partial blast from the demonic bracelets of the reptilians is lethal. You were well on your way to the land of the dead. Luckily for you, I felt pangs of guilt for leaving you to face the serpent and returned. I found you had turned the tables on the scaly friend, but the destroying rays emanating from the bracers had done their work! I brought you here in hopes that the healing machines could repair you. It seems they have, thank the Mover!"

Kaa-Vulth struggled into a sitting position. He was atop a crystalline dais, and beneath another enormous crystalline flower-like structure. The whole apparatus pulsated with multi hued lights. The purple-faced dwarves scurried this way and that, performing enigmatic tasks. Kaa-Vulth shook his silvery mane.

"Khouzouhept." he muttered.

"Ah yes. You communed with the entity did you not? And came away with your sanity intact! Verily, there still are men of iron upon this sphere!"

"Dool-Lagari, what is Khouzouhept?"

The wildman shrugged his massive, shaggy shoulders.

"Who can say? A god? A devil? Some sort of tulpa given independent life? Not even the reptilians who contained it knew. It is free now, you shattered it's matrix and released it ere you passed out. I felt it as it fled this place."

"To where?"

"Again, who can say? It has dwelt here on this sphere for uncounted eons, perhaps it will return the cosmic gulfs. But what of you Kaa-Vulth, emperor of Tazzozz, what will you do?

Kaa-Vulth slid off the dais, stretched his limbs and paced about experimentally. The weakness he had felt before was gone. Vitality was returning to his body, and sharpness to his mind.

"Same as before, I will return to Tazzozz, and oust the cretins that betrayed me."

Dool-Lagari nodded, and as if by magic he produced the silvery apparatus, sought by Kaa-Vulth, that selfsame device which dazed and stupefied men.

"No doubt you would have me show you the operation of this, so you might use it to lay low your enemies, yes? I owe you my freedom, manling. I will show you how to operate the device, and aid you in your conquest, or re-conquest as it were."

Kaa-Vulth regarded the device gripped in the hairy paw of the wildman. A scowl spread over his scarred face. This was the work of the Serpent men, like the deadly bracers and the matrix that imprisoned the cosmic entity Khouzouhept. Eternities of blasphemies were the legacy of the—snake—that—speaks. Could he make use of a weapon forged by the scaly claws of the children of Yig?

"Do not trouble yourself, Dool-Lagari. I will not use foul sorcery to regain the Opal Throne.!"

Kaa-Vulth spread out his scarred war-calloused hands before him, and curled them into mallet like fists.

"With these two hands I spilled blood to take that throne, and thus I will spill more to have it back, by Visking!"

Dool-Lagari laughed long and hard.

"Spoken like a true Son of Adam! Long have my people observed yours, and ever have your kind wallowed in bloodshed! I fear you are doomed Kaa-Vulth, doomed to be the eternal savage!"

Kaa-Vulth bared his teeth in a wolfish grin.

"I would not have it otherwise!"

The End


End file.
